I worked through the comments on three more chapters today. One of the concerns I had about the novel for a while was that there is a significant change in tone after the original climax where things slow down and then I do a slow build to another climax. That wouldn’t have been so bad if I could just call them two different parts of the novel, but the two parts wouldn’t be very well balanced in terms of how much text is in each one. One of the ideas I had while I was reviewing the book with my friend is that there is a bit of a lull in the middle of part 1 where the characters are all settled in place for a while working on long term projects — I can use this to break up the first part and make a three part novel. I’m pretty sure this will help the pacing make more sense since the tonal shift won’t be so unexpected. However, even the new part 1 (which I just got through reviewing comments for today) still takes up nearly half the book. I’m not sure if that will work or if it will still seem unbalanced. There is a pretty dramatic event that happens in the middle of the new, smaller part 1, but I’m not sure if it will work to put another divider in there or if that would be disruptive to the flow of the story.